CBS is treating Stephen Colbert’s smart fans like fools by citing a ‘financial decision’

Starting when I was about 10 years old, my summer bedtime didn’t exist. I stayed up late not to sneak around or watch horror movies but for one sacred reason: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Carson was my hero. When, for years, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I was quick to say, “The host of The Tonight Show.”

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In the summer of 1979, I mowed enough lawns to buy two copies of People simply because Johnny was on the cover wearing a red-striped button-down. I spent years trying to find that same shirt, and when I finally got one, I felt like Johnny.

That same year, the Burbank, California, phone book featured Carson on the cover. I sent a letter to the Burbank phone company asking for one, and they sent one to me. I treasured it. I even developed a Carson impression, thanks mostly to Rich Little’s famous version, and mimicked him obsessively. I can still do it.

When he retired in 1993, I mourned. But I knew exactly who I’d follow next, and that was David Letterman, who was also Johnny’s favorite. Carson sent jokes to Dave after retiring, and his lone post-retirement appearance was on The Late Show. Letterman became my guy. I’ve met him twice, and I attended tapings of his show multiple times.

When Letterman retired, I naturally turned to his successor, Stephen Colbert. I admired him from The Colbert Report, and over the last 10 years, I’ve been in his corner. His intelligence, wit, and moral clarity, especially during the Trump years, are not just refreshing, they are necessary.

There was another reason. The Jimmys, Kimmel and Fallon, are both clever and funny, but Colbert’s humor was much more intellectual and much more attuned to an audience that was already deep into the news, so the jokes could be more precise, sharper, and perceptive.

So when I heard the news Thursday that CBS and its parent company, Paramount, were canceling The Late Show and letting Colbert go, I was stunned and saddened. It was framed as a "financial decision," and many have accepted that at face value. But as someone who’s spent 30 years in corporate America, I know when something stinks.

And this stinks. And it stinks because CBS is treating Colbert’s clever audience like a bunch of fools.

Let’s start with the obvious, and that is it's no secret that late-night television has been in decline. Streaming habits, younger viewers, and evolving tastes have changed the landscape. Axios rightly noted that we are watching the final generation of traditional late-night hosts. When Kimmel and Fallon leave after Colbert, presumably no one expects replacements. The genre is dying.

It’s also true that Colbert’s show was losing money. But here’s the thing I learned in corporate America, and that is when profits sink, cuts are made mostly gradually. You scale back. You revise budgets. You negotiate. You don’t just eliminate entire divisions overnight unless something bigger is at play. For example, private equity taking over a public company and wiping away whole departments and subsidiary businesses.

I’ve been through that, and it ain’t fun.

I’ve also had to let people go in my career, and I’ve been let go twice myself. In fact, as a well-paid upper-middle manager, I was expendable while cheaper, younger talent remained. That’s how companies behave. Cutting around the edges first before taking big slices.

But you don’t torch a flagship show without at least talking to the host. Right? Did CBS ask Colbert to take a pay cut? Staff reductions? Did it explore cheaper production models? More advertising partnerships? Fewer episodes? There seems to be a lot of other options that would fall into the explanation of financial decision making.

And here’s the part where everything starts to line up. CBS and Paramount recently settled a lawsuit with Donald Trump, one they could have easily fought and won on First Amendment grounds. Legal experts widely agree they had a strong case. But they didn’t want the fight. They settled. And now, magically, the network’s most prominent Trump critic will be gone as of next year.

Trump didn’t hide his glee. He celebrated Colbert’s cancellation. We’re supposed to believe this is all just a coincidence?

Come on, give us a break!

This was never just about ratings or ad dollars. This was about influence. About appeasement. About Paramount trying to get a massive merger with Skydance Media through the Federal Communications Commission, a merger that will require approval from a Trump-aligned regime. That’s the real “business decision.”

And in that context, Colbert was a problem. A high-profile thorn in the side of a man whose ego is more fragile than a delicate flower.

So, fire Colbert or lick Trump’s derriere? The choice was easy. Silencing Colbert.

Yes, late night may be fading, but Colbert still has gas in the tank. He is still a cultural force. A moral compass. And one of the few mainstream entertainers who has stood unapologetically against Trump’s authoritarian creep. In a time when American democracy is sliding toward autocracy, that matters more than ever.

Paramount decided that quashing dissent was easier and more profitable than defending free speech. It rolled over. And the price was Stephen Colbert.

We Colbert fans are not fools. And we won’t be cowed by CBS.

Johnny Carson made me fall in love with late-night. David Letterman’s brand of humor was so appealing and easy. And Stephen Colbert? He reminded us that truth (or truthiness), intellect, and decency can coexist.

CBS didn’t just cancel a talk show. It folded like a cheap suit to the very man Colbert spent a decade warning us about. And that’s not a financial decision.

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